I thought it would be fun to start out the storytime by allowing kids to identify different shapes. I was asking my colleague AnnMarie (our resident iPad guru) for ideas about apps to use and she mentioned this one. It had exactly what I was looking for, except I wish I had played with it a bit long before deciding to use it. Because after a few kids got to play, you then “earn a sticker” which takes you out of the app a bit. It wasn’t a big deal, and you can continue playing after that, it’s just a reminded to use the apps for longer before I bring them out so there are no surprises.

This time, we played the “dog” game with Sago Mini Pet Cafe. In this game, a purple shaded version of a food is placed in front of the animal and the user has to drag the purple shape with their finger to match it to the white shape. When you get it right, the shape shows you want it is, the animal eats it, and then you get to see what the animal things of the food. Dog is not a fan of broccoli, apparently. I walked around with the iPad so that each of the children present had a turn to match the shapes.

The Dr. Seuss story comes to life in this app. The app will say the name of some of the shapes when you tap on them, so this makes it fun to have the guess what a silhouette is, and then see if they are right!

MOVEMENT:“Jump Up, Turn Around” by Jim Gill from Jim Gill’s Sings Moving Rhymes for Modern Times

APP:Tino the Triangle from Larixpress (iOS; free for starter story, $1.99 for full story)

This was a fun app to read/play because it is half story, half guessing game. The story begins, and as you tap the yellow triangle it turns into the blue background page with an animal noise sound. The children can guess the animal and then tap again to see if they are correct! Some of the noises are actually pretty difficult to decipher.

THOUGHTS ON THIS eSTORYTIME:After looking through the estorytimes I have done, I realized that most of my technical issues arise when I am moving from one media to the other (like from iPad mirroring to cd). This time, so as to avoid that, I decided to play the Jim Gill action song I use through the iPad. I forgot to add it to my playlist, but I did find a streaming version of it online and just went there to play it. And it worked!